Being a complete geek, I read a lot of code and documentation for fun. Yes, I said for fun. Most of the time these docs are written by men and they are rather dry and use words like ‘he’, ‘his’ and ‘him’ on all the pages. Today, while reading through some WordPress docs, imagine my surprise as I read the following:
Woohoo! Acknowledgement that women can be authors, designers and geeks, too! Kudos to WordPress. :)
17 comments
Scott Carpenter
:-)
I have a coworker who likes to say, “Don’t worry, the voices are telling me *not* to kill you.” I’m not sure what it says about me that I always find that humorous.
gretchen
Really? What else are they telling you? :-?
Scott Carpenter
It’s the voices in my head. They tell me to say these things. (The weird thing is, it always seems to be the FEMALE voices.) :-)
Amy Stephen
Scott certainly does! lol! Hey Stacy!
gretchen
Dana – I use “they” and “their” a lot when I speak, but I know it’s not grammatically correct to use it when I write. I wish it wasn’t such a big deal.
8-|
Scott – you like to live dangerously, don’t you? ;)
Scott Carpenter
What do the rest of you think about Dana’s comment? Does it have a point? I can tell it feels strongly about this, so I’d best watch my step.
Dana
How come every time someone uses a female pronoun, some GUY comes along proclaiming that what we need is a neutral pronoun?
We *do* have a neutral pronoun. “It.”
Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing the pendulum swinging back the other way and seeing “she” and “her” used to represent everybody. If guys can represent the whole species, surely the gender that actually bears the children can too.
(Actually, it used to be grammatically correct to use “they” as a singular neutral pronoun. Even Shakespeare did it. For some reason, at the beginning of the 20th or thereabouts, it was decided this was improper usage. But I’ve started using it again here and there just to be obnoxious.)
gretchen
Cool – thanks, Stacy. :d
And Scott… Bring it on! >:/
Stacy
I’ll definitely take care of Scott if he becomes a problem! I like your site, Gretchen. I’ve subscribed to the feed, and I look forward to reading more.
Amy Stephen
Crap. Did Scott follow me here? lol! If he doesn’t behave, Gretchen, we can always tell his big sister, Stacy!